Publisher halts sale of Monica Crowley book after plagiarism accusation

“The book, which has reached the end of its natural sales cycle, will no longer be offered for purchase until such time as the author has the opportunity to source and revise the material,” HarperCollins wrote in a Tuesday statement to CNN’s KFile, which broke the story.

The CNN report found 50 instances in Crowley’s book where text from news articles, think tanks and Wikipedia were nearly identical with only minor adjustments. Also listed are examples of similar text from Fox News, where Crowley up until recently appeared as a contributor, as well as writers at National Review, Associated Press, the New York Times, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the BBC and Yahoo News.

The book, which was a New York Times bestseller, did not include notes or a bibliography.

Though the Trump transition team did not reply to CNN’s request for comment on HarperCollins’ decision to pull the book, the Trump camp originally dismissed the Saturday report as an attempt to damage Crowley’s credibility.

“Monica’s exceptional insight and thoughtful work on how to turn this country around is exactly why she will be serving in the Administration,” a transition spokesperson told CNN. “HarperCollins — one of the largest and most respected publishers in the world — published her book which has become a national best-seller. Any attempt to discredit Monica is nothing more than a politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing this country.”

Crowley faced another accusation of plagiarism just three days later.

A report Monday said Crowley plagiarized “numerous passages” in her 2000 dissertation for her international relations Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Politico said it found a number of “structural and syntactic similarities” to text within six books and articles on U.S. foreign policy. Crowley occasionally made small wording adjustments instead of quoting and sometimes didn’t use footnotes where appropriate, the report says.

The Politico report follows another on Saturday which claimed Crowley plagiarized several passages in a 2012 book she wrote.

Crowley was also accused of plagiarizing a Commentary magazine article back in the late 1990s. She denied the claim, saying, “‘I did not, nor would I ever, use material from a source without citing it.”